More planning inflexibility

Palmerston North resident Gary Sturgess cannot believe how much red tape there is over a kitchen sink.

The particular sink is part of downstairs rooms at his Ruahine St home where 21-year-old granddaughter Georgia Garrett, who has Down syndrome, is learning independent living skills while under the same roof as mother Tania, aunt Jacqui and granddad Gary.

The family bought the house 2½ years ago, having chosen to live together after a difficult year when Sturgess’ wife Valerie had died.

The home had everything to enable three adults and a teenager to live together for support, while each had private space, a bathroom and somewhere to prepare a cup of tea or basic meal.

But a few months after purchase, a letter from the city council told them the two downstairs units did not have planning consent.

Sturgess was taken by surprise, and appalled by the initial estimates of the cost of putting things right.

There was the possibility of having to provide two extra car parks on site for each unit, additional outdoor living space, paying development contributions – adding up to about $12,000. Alternatively, the sinks could be disconnected. Landscaping plans went on hold.

This is just idiotic. If they want to have a house with only one car park for three people they should be able to. And why does the Council care how many sinks you have?

Sturgess said when buying the house, the family had no reason to question whether the kitchen sinks were consented. There was no sink in Georgia’s flat when they first looked, but there had been in the past, and the vendor offered to put it back in for them.

“We thought that would make it perfect for Georgia, given her desire to go flatting one day.”

They had sought a Land Information Management report before purchase, and no red flags were raised.

That is unusual. The LIM should list any consent issues.

Policy planner Matthew Mackay said submitters had challenged the rule about just one extra self-contained unit on a residential property, and there was a possibility of more flexibility being written into the District Plan after a hearing this year.

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Comments (28)

alex Masterley

I am going through resource consent bollocks at the moment.
I have a heritage person asking stupid questions about the plans for our 1910 workingmans cottage. then because we are in a res 1 zone in kingsland of all places we have to have 2 carparks! And we only own one car.
Spare me from planning lunacy!

As long as they need to draw a line between a single dwelling and multiple dwellings there will always be borderline cases where adding or subtracting one sink or stove or toilet will change it. Rates should be on the unimproved value of the land then this would not happen.

Captain Mainwaring

Fentex

The explanation is the presence of a sink in an otherwise complete kitchen is used to determine if that kitchen represents a self contained facility.

So that rules which refer to ‘self contained’ (meaning I think a separate residence) can be judged to be in effect or not.

This, in this case, rules about provision of car parking etc which wouldn’t apply to rooms within a residence are triggered for a new residence.

The idea isn’t lunatic – there has to be something that delineates whether a place is or isn’t what a law is applied to – while still representing a possibly inappropriate inflexibility in those laws.

The question of whether the laws about self contained residences et al may be inappropriate isn’t a question about what defines that self containment which itself may be a perfectly sensible rule for delineating definitions.

srylands

“This, in this case, rules about provision of car parking etc which wouldn’t apply to rooms within a residence are triggered for a new residence.

The idea isn’t lunatic …”
___________________

Yes it is lunatic. If people want a car park they will factor that into location decisions. Many Wellington residential dwellings don’t have car parks. It gets sorted. People park on the street. If that is not acceptable they arrange to park somewhere else, or they make do without a car. The Council’s concern should be that a dwelling is safe and sanitary. That’s it.

Colville

A very edited version of the story.

The sink in question was installed without a permit by the vendor prior to the purchaser taking over.

In Palmy you cannot have a secondary dwelling without getting a land use consent and probably neighbours consent and as stated above the kitchen sink is the trigger. You can have a cooker and a shower and hand basin in a sleepout and it is not “self contained”

Places like Hastings you are allowed a 80M2 secondary dwelling as of right and there is a chapter in the plan spelling out the rules for that.

Fentex

I meant the idea of a delineation isn’t lunatic. The actual laws it delineates between are another matter for judgement.

The Auckland Transport blog often writes interesting articles on the particular topic of the cost of demanding car parks where they demonstrate it can make land unnecessarily expensive through wasting it’s use.

Graeme

If the on-demand driverless cars / automated taxis are the future of transport what is the point of having rules about garages and parking at all. Let the buyer decide what is required for their own property.

I tend to be with you Graeme except when I built the family home it was the building regulations which told me how to do it as a non-tradesman I knew nothing about building … unfortunately when it came to building my retirement home the builders had organised the rules to go but fortunately by then I knew what I was doing, more or less.

Since there was nothing in the LIM report it is the responsibility of the vendor to put things right ?

UrbanNeocolonialist

We’ve had decades of the RMA, and extreme council interference and regulation of properties/building land use. At this point most people will have had negative experiences with these laws and systems, or know someone who has.

So why can’t we get these fucking laws changed/reverted to something more accommodating/cheaper/faster? Are voters too apathetic or is it too much political power in the hands of the beneficiaries (bureaucrats and some professionals).

trout

It sounds as though the Palmy N Council are going to try and reinstate granny flats. There are granny flats all over Auckland (minor self contained unit within an existing house); used to be legal but are now outlawed. Not sure why they were banned – in the 60’s they were regarded as socially desirable. Perhaps the cross lease fad (which bypassed subdivision rules) scared the council, or it may have been fire separation issues. From memory a granny flat did not require a carpark.

The LIM only contains matters the council knows about. If it’s an “illegal” sink, it wouldn’t be in the LIM.

Generally, purchasers of properties don’t do their homework and expect vendors to disclose everything. That’s why we have this problem now: The destruction of caveat emptor and reliance on vendor disclosure. It’s called something else more basic: Personal responsibility. If you’re spending $300,000 – $400,000 then do your homework. I have no sympathy if you don’t.

Michael

This is one of those cases where the law is an ass, and everyone (including council) know it. The aim here is to allow a disabled young person gain life skills by caring for themselves in an environment where there is family support, and a kitchen sink is part of that. The issue only will arise if the house is on-sold – surely the family and council can agree a strategy for this (removing the sink?) and not worry about planning rules.

I’m on Team Council Morons. And Michael, What the fuck? Why the fuck should there be a Nancy-assed agreement to remove the sink if the house is onsold? What the fuck business is it of the council if a future purchaser agrees to buy it without provision for it’s removal or the addition of a fancy fuckin Jacuzzi to compensate. You can write any condition you wish into a standard S&P but the council should keep it’s noses clean by keeping the fuck out of private arrangements between buyer and seller.

eszett

This is just idiotic. If they want to have a house with only one car park for three people they should be able to. And why does the Council care how many sinks you have?

The issue is not with one house having one car park, but how many self contained units there are, i.e. how many different independant parties can live there. You would assume that each unit would most likely have a car, hence it does make sense to make sure there are enough car parks available.

Fentex already pointed that out.

You may disagree with this approach, but there is certainly nothing “idiotic” about it.

That is unusual. The LIM should list any consent issues.

If someone installed the sinks without consent or notifying anyone, how would the LIM pick it up?

Sturgess said when buying the house, the family had no reason to question whether the kitchen sinks were consented.

Whatever happen to “personal responsibility”, usually thrown around here on this blog with impunity? Simply ask the question, “is there consent for all the modifications of the house?” Not that difficult. If it went through a real estate agent, they should have picked up on it.

Having said that I do have sympathy for the families position. The council should possibly have some leeway in situations like this. They could grant an exception on the condition that the sinks are removed if the daughetr moves out or the housei s sold.

But to use this as an example of “red tape gone mad” is really nonsense.

duggledog

Remember that Fijian Indian (of course) immigrant on the North Shore who had a one car carport that he quietly converted into a two story three bedroom house with two bathrooms?

I remember the f***er, there he was on Fair Go or some such, naturally the Council had no teeth and the thing was never bulldozed, which it should have been.

Some of this red tape you DO NOT want to have removed or this story as I have described above will flourish out of all control. The immigrants we have flooding into New Zealand (read: Auckland) now would have every tree and shrub cut down and will squeeze as many shitting arses onto their sections as they can. Check out what they have done to their own countries if you don’t believe me.

eszett

Monique Angel (425 comments) says:
January 29th, 2016 at 7:02 pm

I’m on Team Council Morons. And Michael, What the fuck? Why the fuck should there be a Nancy-assed agreement to remove the sink if the house is onsold? What the fuck business is it of the council if a future purchaser agrees to buy it without provision for it’s removal or the addition of a fancy fuckin Jacuzzi to compensate. You can write any condition you wish into a standard S&P but the council should keep it’s noses clean by keeping the fuck out of private arrangements between buyer and seller.

Buyer and seller are free to make any private arrangements, but that diesn’t mean that they are free from consequences.
If you buy a car without a WOF, you are free to do so. But you cannot complain about red tape that you are required to get a WOF to use the car.

laworder

Yes it is lunatic. If people want a car park they will factor that into location decisions. Many Wellington residential dwellings don’t have car parks. It gets sorted. People park on the street. If that is not acceptable they arrange to park somewhere else, or they make do without a car. The Council’s concern should be that a dwelling is safe and sanitary. That’s it.

Have to agree, personally secure, covered car parking is absolutely crucial to any property I buy, and is a key requirement – the joys of classic car ownership. For others it is insignificant or a non-issue if they dont have a car. Let people make their buying decisions accordingly. When I was looking for an apartment a while back I went to look at one very nice property and spent 10 seconds looking at the (very flash) kitchen which the real estate agent had been raving about saying how wonderful it was, and 20 minutes closely inspecing the car parks. I think she might have thought me a bit odd – that wouldnt be a first 🙂

Michael

@Monique – the rule is driven by having a self contained unit driving there is extra parking demand and on street parking is a nightmare for councils. They get involved in neighbour disputes over car parking, there is always conflict over use – especially if it is being removed for safety reasons or use as a loading zone/bus stop/cycleway etc. (One of the big issues in Island Bay is that many properties pre-date car ownership so on street parking is the only option for residents – hence a cycle lane through their parking areas causing conflict.) Plus the cost of enforcement in residential areas is never recovered through tickets. In the end other ratepayers bear the cost of insufficient off street parking at private dwellings.

In this case the existing resident will not have extra parking requirements so looking the other way is fine. But that can’t be guaranteed in future – hence my suggestion that council take a pragmatic approach of leaving things as they are for the existing owners only.

Paulus

Many years ago we bought a 1910 villa in Devonport.
We were then told by the Council (a lady? prospective buyer had contacted her friend in Council) that the property was divided into two apartments ?
We contacted owners twice back over 30 years and they said they knew nothing about this.
It cost us $2,500 to get agreement (not retrospectively)
For as long as we could establish rates had been paid to Council for one dwelling.
Of course they took no notice.
We later learned that the Council Office Fire in 196? had destroyed the records anyway.

Left Right and Centre

This is just idiotic. If they want to have a house with only one car park for three people they should be able to. And why does the Council care how many sinks you have?

It looks like it’s all to do with whether a property owner is converting a dwelling into separate units within the one property, with the intention of renting them all out. Which explains why they are then concerned with providing enough car parks per unit – otherwise there are potential problems with disputes over parking – possibility of too many vehicles.

I see there is sometimes something called an encumbrance which means that say a sink can be added and then removed upon sale for use by a dependent resident.

I’m seeing things like . . .title – it’s one property, not legally separate titles. It’s for private use by related parties / residents. It looks as though they form ‘one total’ home – so – no separation by different locks and keys – all can be accessed internally.

In terms of local authorities trying to determine whether a property is being turned into units for tenants – that makes sense, surely ? In this story that is not the case.

It shouldn’t matter how many sinks a property has. Some houses – every bedroom has an ensuite, well – four rooms, kitchen, laundry – main bathroon – could be six or seven. Private use house – it should make no difference. To test for tenant / units – need a more robust list of ‘if it has this, then it’s more likely this’ etc.

Out of interest – so you can’t be a nutter who lives alone in his house with two kitchens / bathrooms / and ten sinks without your house being classed as units ?